


Fallout drabbles

by SilverGopher



Category: Fallout - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-23 16:05:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11993208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverGopher/pseuds/SilverGopher
Summary: short fics in the Fallout universe





	1. The Legion at reddings Hill

For young soldiers it can be hard to understand just how much fear the legion created. After the defeat at the damn and their report disassembly a lot of the fear they cultivated, kind of disappeared. The textbooks don't convey the utter terror you felt when crimson flags fluttered on the dessert winds. So the duty falls to us, the veterans of the dessert. The lost generation. The men in khaki who fought under the bear. Kimball's chosen. God, we were fools.

 

It was hot. For some that statement might seem redundant, of course the dessert is hot. But those people have never been in the dessert wind in full combat gear. i remember the heat most. It was hot enough to make you wish for a nuclear winter. That statement became the de facto joke of the conscripts. a lot of the natives took to parroting it back at us in a sing song voice. That was the most annoying thing. To this day I still going my teeth when i remember those jokes. 

 

Young soldiers don't understand the sheer weight of the old standard issue combat gear. Ten pounds of wool coat and jodhpurs, heavy leather boots and a leather breastplate. If you were an officer you had to wear a burlap mantle that chafed at your neck, and a beret that did shit all to keep the sun off your face. The rank and file were lucky there. There helmets had actual brims, and were kinda like hats. a scarf you could pull up to cover your face, indispensable and hated. Once a week it was absolutely necessary but the rest of the time, you despised the thing. Leather gloves, and heavy goggles. If you were in any other biome i'd say that you were weatherproofed, but in the mojave you always felt a trail of sweat down the back of your neck. the posters reminding you to hydrate or die were omnipresent. 

 

The worst thing about the standard issue gear was its utter inability to stop a bullet. Leather might help against a blade, but bullets especially rifle rounds will punch right through. the books leave it out because a sea of red bearing lawn-mower blade machetes is far more interesting than a smart and vicious enemy, just as well armed as you ever were. Hell, half the time they were better armed. The old M16's we were handed could put a few holes in a legionnaire and they had an excellent fire rate, but not all legion armor was made of leather. Frumentari strapped ceramic plates to their cuirass's, defanging the humble 5.56. Centurions, the closed fist of Caeser for scraps of scavenged power armor and forged steel. The tougher legionaries often brought machine guns and high powered rifles to bear, cutting us to ribbons as their screaming tide crashed upon us with machetes. 

 

Knowing that we were out numbered and outgunned really didn't help morale. supplies were tight, and we'd often go weeks without pay, and even when we got payed, the conversion rate really did favor the cap. you could even get a beer for a twenty. Stress was through the roof. It wasn't unusual for raw recruits  to steal chess from the medical tents. Pycho to kill the fear, because unrelenting murderous rage felt better than the fear. Med-x to dull the aches of both body and mind. Rebound for no better reason than sometimes you need a relaxant. I never stole chems, that was a sure shot to the brig. And the Mojave campaign was divorced from the rules that governed the rest of the NCR, so what would normally have been a suspension lead to the hangman noose. This fear and inability to deal with it led to hundreds, maybe even thousands of desertions. I watched more execution then i care to recall. Justice had to be swift to preserve order they say. I took up smoking, cancer seemed better than a noose.

 

The service rifle i'd been handed when i was recruited had never left me with a good taste in my mouth, but there could only be one heavy weapon per squad. My friend Dek was selected because he had a construction workers physique. But all his power didn't stop a legionnaire from cutting his throat. i put five rounds into that legionnaire and took my first ear. That's something you won't find in the books, the ears. Every soldier had a collection, it was part of an attempted morale raising event based on a bad pun, legion-ears. I got hold of Dek's machine gun, and helped beat back that legion attack, and after that i was the defacto gunner for my squad. I felt safer with a two hundred round mag full of armor piercing 5.56. The AP rounds, they were useful against the tougher legionaries. 

 

Some of us called camp Forlorn Hope Reddings hill. It felt nicer than Forlorn hope, and every so often the hill would turn crimson.  I was in a fox hole on the hill, the day the legion assaulted the dam.  so many forget that it was a co-ordinated assault against the entire Mojave, wherever a man fought under the bear. They came up the hill like a hundred times before, and I ground the stock into my shoulder and deployed the bi-pod. mortars flew overhead, those were ours. But legionaries in metal armor, and bandanas wrapped round their faces launched rockets against our bulwarks. sandbags don't do much against a tank killer, but by sheer blind luck i escaped the bombardment. we had a detachment of First Recon snipers with us at the camp, and they made a point of cutting down anyone they saw lift a launcher. Grenades flew back and forth like the worlds deadliest game of catch, and i wrote cursive with lead. If you aimed for the knees, you took far more of them out of the fight. That wasn't something they taught you in basic, but the legion didn't armor they're legs. I left cripples in my wake, moving back and forth like a lethal typewriter. The sound is almost impossible to properly convey, but it drove all though from your head and turned your vision red. In times like that you fell back on primal instincts, kill, kill, kill move and kill. when you're a trained gunner you can feel when the ammo run dry, its when your shoulder stops getting pummeled black and blue. 

 

I was slotting in another box mag when the sirens started blaring. I managed to lay the belt and lock it in place before the first gusts started. By the time the storm was on in full i was wearing my heavy googles. The mortars kept firing, blasting craters into the hill. A woman in a scarf ran in front of the forward positions laying land mines and claymores, and homemade bottle cap mines. some soldiers in heavy scavenged power armor were arriving now, they'd showed up via trucks during the first exchange. They carried auto shotguns and grenade launchers, and they were ready to kill. The legion was many things, but they weren't omnipotent. They needed the air to clear before they could continue they're assault. So the minefield grew and some soldiers piled into my foxhole dragging a bundle of frag grenades. They had service rifles, but they brought a shotgun, pump action .12 gauge for me. We went over our browning high powers, making sure they were loaded and ready to go. Checked our knives, and steeled ourselves. One of the soldiers slammed some pycho, and the other put some med-x in their system. the pychoed up one put a bayonet on his rifle, which so many of us forgot existed. The Med-x one ground his rifle into his shoulder and waited.

 

The wind died and the roar of war started again, a symphony of destruction. I wrote in blood till my gun ran dry, while my battlefield friends put rounds through joints. But the legion had a certain brilliance behind they're ruthless nature. Drown us in blood and corpse and they can get close enough. My machine gun ran dry as the legion reached our foxhole. I lifted the shotgun as my pycho mate charged the interlopers firing the last rounds in his mag before driving the bayonet into one of them. he battered and clubbed and slashed, and stabbed in a mad frenzy of blood and blades. despite his maelstrom a legionaries made it to the edge of the bulwark, and i put a slug though his chest. the funny thing about violence it its actually somewhat monotonous. I could tell you how i wracked the pump, how i batter , and how i looked my enemies in the eye while i blew them apart, but it would get repetitive. Eventually by the time, the inferno had calmed long enough for me to light a cigarette we had used all our grenades and ammo, Save for three rounds in my browning and a serrated blade in my left hand. I had been shot three times, and cut four, and the wounds slowly bled. My Med-xed friend was enjoy its coagulating capabilities which was the only thing keeping him alive, he'd caught a machete across his throat. Our pycho friend had been surround by the swarm and hacked to pieces, while we watched.

 

We kept waiting for the legion to come again, but by the time my cigarette was burning against my lip, we realized they weren't coming. Every able bodied man was pulled to help the wounded, so thats what we did. we pulled men from dented power armor, and performed emergency amputations, wrapping tourniquets tight. I held unsanitized bandages against wound till the wounded could handle it. At some point they found out i had been a tailor before my conscription, and then i was sewing together cuts, and helping to pull out bits of lead. it was long work, and the medical corp didn't arrive for three days. We'd run out of Med-x and morphine, and codeine, and all the other painkillers by then. We didn't even have enough liquor to get them drunk. The screaming never stopped, and their plaintive wails were like driving an ice pick through your ear. The worst wound i had was a shattered knee cap that left me walking with a limp. But so many were wounded that they that i stayed in till the end of my tour.

 

And thats's what you're teachers are afraid to tell you. They'll talk of the glory of war but never mention its horrors. The call the legion uneducated savages, but those "savages" spoke latin and almost conquered the world. Never forget that, lest they rope you into an "easy" war against an enemy in bright colors who don't have guns.


	2. Profligates at the Gate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My Latin is quite poor

I was born into service. It was not a high calling, it was the baseline expectation of all born under the Bull.  Some of the others considered the station of their birth, to be a sign from mighty Mars, the god of war. His message was carried by Caesar, the son of war. But know, twenty years removed from the cult of Mars, I know the truth. His name was Edward Sallow, and he was a twisted, spiteful man, full of rage for everyone and everything. 

 

I have lived in the NCR for twenty years, and my rage has cooled. I realize now that my childhood was stolen and perverted. I was a walking warcrime, a child soldier. The first time i took a life, i was seven. Hidden away in a closet with a hand grenade, killed two troopers and crippled a ranger. Back then i thought it was the bees knees, i wasn't even beaten that night. Now, what i did to ranger Andy is one of the most shameful parts of a life that I've learned to be rightfully ashamed of. But blood never quite washes off, and I'm stained with rivers of it.

 

I was at the last stand at the dam. Well, thats not entirely accurate, I was at the fort, as you would know it. We called it fortification hill. it was far more massive than that name would imply. Its walls were twenty feet of scrap iron, Its gate made of twisted barbed wire. Skulls and captured heads were planted every fifty feet exactly to stoke fear into the profligates. In retrospect the warning signs were there, only a half legion had been dispatched to secure the dam, and the Legate had remained at camp sharpening his blade. Never once had Lanius stayed away from the tumult of battle so that he stayed at the hill set us all on edge. Either he had changed, or there was going to be far more violence at the hill. Everything was on a knifes edge, and so we all went armed. Machetes at our belts and rifles slung over our backs. Fear was deep in us, puling with hooks.

 

Before we heard the rumbling march of a battalion, Caesar joined us. He was wearing battle armor instead of his ceremonial robes, and he'd left his brass crown behind. his glove was heavy on his hand as his flanking praetorians followed his every move. it was my first time really seeing the son of Mars, and to be entirely honest i felt let down. He was old, and sallow his limbs trembled and sweat beaded on his upper lip. There was fear in his eyes, but far more resolve. His voice was wavering and unathoritive, but i still remember his words, "This is where we will make our last stand. I will not begrudge the cowardly among you your chance to flee, but i will stand till the end."

 

Some of us ran, But not many before the cry went up, "Sunt ante portas, militum portarum!" The cry went down the lines and hands tightened on weapons. It was Caesar who gave the final orders, " Crimine mortis infamiam, confodiantur seorsum die martis honorem!" Every member of the legion spoke latin fluently, to honor Mars, to confuse our enemies, the reasons were many, the result one. I wan't in the front, i was near the massed middle ranks but we charge into gunfire. All around me my brothers fell, blood indistinguishable from their holy crimson.  by the time id made it to the front i'd crawled over the dead and lost my then empty rifle. my vision honed in on one man, an officer by his beret. If i could kill him before i died, my honor would remain in tact. i got close enough and my blade sheared through his leather plates, but not deep enough to do more than draw a thin line of red. His pistol turned on me, and there was pain, an all consuming burning from deep in my gut and i fell among the corpses. 

I lay there for hours, and watched so many last stands. I watched Lanius cleave through line after line of shoulder, leaving their evicerated corpse as proof of his famed ferocity. The Praetorians did their damnedest to guard caesar, their ballistic fist blowing soldiers away with an unmatched precision. bone crumpled around them, and shot gun shells ripped through their leather plates at dangerously close range, but shells are often no match for a maelstrom of lead and explosive ordnance. Caesar was the last to die, his mighty displacer glove ripping people apart at the seams, and depositing them up to twenty feet away. eventually a ranger blew him away from behind with a sequoia. Later i'd learn that ranger was Chief Hanlon.

 

I was taken with all the wounded, treated and rehabilitated. As a child soldier they couldn't justify my execution, though i caused them no end of trouble.

Now i work a farm, and despite the nightmares i am content.


	3. Raiders at the Gate

Raiders aren't the homicidal madmen from your grandfathers stories.  They're raiders. That means they raid. And raids require a kind of precision and cooperation that can be difficult to find in professional soldiers. Raiders are far more likely to stick a gun in your face and demand your valuables than they are to shoot you and loot your corpse. So many people forget that raiders are people too, and that many of them have mouths to feed. To label them as drug addicted lunatics does everyone involved a disservice.

 

Raiders actually fulfill several vital economic roles in the postwar world. Due to their tendencies to steal or "find" valuable scrap, they are often welcome at salvage shops, more so than manny scanners can claim. Their constant inter-gang warfare keeps the arms merchants in business between the wasteland wars, those being short lived affairs. And even a small raider gang can keep a modest chem dealer or distillery owner in business on their own.  to remove the "scourge" of raiders would be to deal an unrecoverable blow to the fragile post war economy.

 

Because of this, Raiders at the gate tends to mean, pay our dues. And the sheriff goes and does it. No big deal. But there are exceptions to every rule. Most raider gangs are small time, with similarly sized desires. but some of the bigger gangs are more like cults or expansionist empires. The Techliks were one such gang. The size of an aboberage settlement, bout forty strong, and well armed. They had a surprisingly uniform level of equipment, every one had a laser rifle and the boss had a plasma rifle. They wore combat armor over leathers, with big stomp boots. The only differences there was in their hats, no uniformity there. They revered tech with a fanaticism that approachehed the BOS. when they marched they marched with a miniature army of secuiritrons, assulatrons, protections and sentry bots. Eyebots blared their propaganda and their speeches ahead of them. 

 

Over the course of a year their ranks swelled, and the conquered settlement after settlement. Around this point they got it in their minds to hit diamond city. The raid was quick, and they blew right through the gate, leaving a hole big enough for a sentry bot to roll through. They stuck up every one, and made off with the loot. They did more than that actually, they took the city and raised their flag.

 

They weren't ousted for over a year, when there defenses were weakened by infighting and outside encroachment. Thats when a wanderer in vault blue wandered through with a shotgun and leathers, and claimed the head of the Techliks chief. We tried to name him a hero, but all he asked for was a discount.


End file.
